Fallen Angel
by WhyAye
Summary: With no evidence to the contrary, it looks like a tragic drowning was just an accident. But then, that wouldn't make for much of a story, would it?
1. Chapter 1

Jeremy Latham had always enjoyed walking his springer spaniel, Toby, along the towpath in the early morning. The unseasonably warm weather added to his pleasure as he strode along, briskly enough to get his heart rate up but not fast enough to break into a sweat. The dog trotted gaily along at his side as if he shared the mood.

But all at once the dog hesitated, the fur along his back forming a ridge, and a deep growl curled in his throat. He stared down at the water in the canal, his teeth shining red as they caught the light of the rising sun. Latham cautiously neared the edge of the canal and peered down. A body floated there.

* * *

She looked to be about twelve. Detective Sergeant James Hathaway watched from a bit of a distance as the forensics officers worked around her. He heard the crunch of car tires on gravel and shifted his view to see his boss, Detective Inspector Robert Lewis climb from his car and approach the scene. Lewis's face fell when he recognized Doctor Cook as the pathologist.

"Where's Doctor Hobson?"

Hathaway knew of Lewis's dislike of Cook. "He says she has the day off."

Lewis rolled his eyes. "Just our luck."

Hearing voices, Doctor Cook glanced up. "Ah, Inspector, good morning."

"Not for her, surely."

Cook ignored that. "Looks like she drowned, probably sometime around midnight. I'll know more after the post mortem."

Hathaway turned to the inspector. "Her name is Lynette Peters. It seems her parents had called in a missing person report earlier this morning. Said she had gone to her room around nine and then in the morning she was gone and her bedroom window was standing open."

"Right. And we get to deliver the bad news. Y'know, Hathaway, there are some parts of this job I could really do without." He scanned the scene. "You're doing a search of the area, right?"

"Yeah, they've only just started."

"Well, let's go see the parents."

It was a nice little cottage, with a small barn in the back, starting to crumble into ruin. Roses climbed the wall by the front door, though it was too early for them to be in bloom. Both men had to duck to get through the doorway and into the front hall.

Lynette's parents were hit hard by the news. They both started crying and the mother wailed loudly: "Lyn! Lyn! My little girl!" Hathaway saw Lewis flinch every time Mrs. Peters called her daughter by that name. It was the same as that of Lewis's own daughter, and he clearly found her cries disconcerting.

They were shown her room, which was neat and dainty, with pink walls, a tidily made bed, and a dresser with half-filled drawers. Mr. Peters explained that the family had moved to Oxford three months ago from Plymouth. But Lynette had trouble fitting in, and fell in with a bunch of kids that were into some bad practices. She started acting out and drinking wine coolers. "We had a row last night about her drinking. I thought she had already had one and I told her she had to stop. I'm pretty sure I smelled it on her breath when we argued. Then she slammed her door and we didn't hear anything else from her all night."

They collected her laptop, but that was the only thing they could see that might provide any clues about what happened. There was no phone, no rucksack. Mrs. Peters gave them the names she knew of Lynette's friends.

As Hathaway drove the two detectives back to the canal, Lewis stared at the passing landscape. "What did you think about all that back there? The crying? The girl's bedroom? No piles of soiled clothes, no posters, no clutter."

"No phone."

"Yeah, well, maybe she took it with her. Let's see what SOCOs have found while we were gone."

The crew on site had found an empty wine cooler bottle on the bank near where her body was found. And very little else. No personal effects at all.

As the crew were wrapping up their search, Lewis turned to his junior officer. "Hathaway, why don't you get back and see what you can get off the laptop. I'm going to go interview as many of her friends as I can find. Call if you find anything useful."

Lewis could not locate most of the people on the list. But the girl whom Lynette's mother had identified as her best friend, 'Toria, was home and more willing to talk to a policeman than Lewis had expected.

"She was unhappy, had been ever since I met her. Wouldn't say why. Right away she started drinking, not all the time but pretty often. Those fruit-flavored, wine cooler things."

"How did she get them? She's not old enough to buy them."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Everybody can get them, it's easy."

"Was she depressed enough to take her own life?"

"I don't think so. She had just met some older guy and she was so excited about that. She had this idea that he was going to change her life, take her away from her parents."

"Any idea of what his name is?"

"She never told me. She said they had to keep their relationship a secret. But he was nineteen, she told me that."

"Didn't she like her home life?"

"No, she hated her parents. Said they were too mean, too strict. But what kid doesn't think that?"

Lewis made his way back to the office. Hathaway explained that he had checked most of the computer with nothing interesting being revealed.

"But there's a locked file called 'Keep Out' that I'm stuck on. Can't guess at the password. I'll keep trying. If I could have that list of friends, maybe she used some combination of their names."

Lewis handed him the list and sighed. He began to write on the whiteboard. "What do we have here, Hathaway? Suicide? There's no evidence of that but we can't rule it out. Accident? That's most likely, especially if she'd had too much to drink. Or is it murder? Someone pushed her in?"

"There's no evidence of that, either, no known enemies or anyone with a motive."

"And no sign of a criminal force involved. But I have a bad feeling about this case I can't shake." Lewis stared out the window.

o - o - o


	2. Chapter 2

At around four o'clock, the phone on Lewis's desk rang. Doctor Cook informed him that the post mortem report was ready. But Lewis had no intention of simply accepting the written product. Past experience with Doctor Cook taught him the man was not as thorough as Doctor Hobson, and he insisted on coming over and getting a face-to-face explanation with the body present.

"The body has already been stored, Inspector, I'm afraid a face-to-face report is not how I operate."

"I'm sorry, Doctor Cook, but it's how _I_ operate. I'll be there in five minutes." He rolled his eyes for Hathaway's benefit, and the younger man repaid the favor by smiling wryly.

At the morgue, Doctor Cook showed Lewis the signs of water in the lungs, and Lewis was satisfied that the cause of death was drowning.

Cook recapped his report. "The victim was about twelve, with no physiological abnormalities. Death occurred about six to eight hours before she was taken from the water. She had been drinking, Inspector. She had a moderate BAC--that's blood alcohol content--it's in the report. Could have been enough to make her uncoordinated, but it was not enough to make her unconscious. No evidence of other drugs in her system. So it could have been suicide, accident, or she could have been pushed in. But there was no sign that she clawed at the walls of the canal or any kind of struggle like that."

As if he didn't know what BAC was. Lewis managed to ignore the doctor's patronizing manner. "Any sign of an assault? Something to show she was pushed, held, shoved, or whatever under the water?"

"Well, there are no broken bones, past or present, no extensive bruising anywhere, no lacerations. Minor injuries wouldn't show after all this time underwater."

"Sexual assault?"

"That can't be ascertained when the body has been in the water this long."

"Oh. Okay, then. Thank you for your time, Doctor Cook. I appreciate the one-on-one report. Makes much more sense to me when I can see the body."

Doctor Cook lapped up the gratitude, even while Lewis felt that somehow the report was incomplete.

The other forensics reports didn't add much. The bottle they had found bore Lynette's fingerprints and her DNA in the traces of saliva. There was no evidence anyone else had handled it.

o - o - o


	3. Chapter 3

When Hathaway returned from his cigarette break, he found Lewis at his desk, reviewing Doctor Cook's post mortem report.

"This report, Sergeant. Something's got to be missing. I wonder if Doctor Hobson would review this for us tomorrow."

"Wouldn't hurt to ask, I suppose."

Lewis picked up the phone handset and speed dialed her mobile.

"Hi, Robbie, what can I do for you?"

"Hey, Laura, I missed you today." A little bit flirty.

Hathaway peeked up from his desk. He was always amused by the way Lewis's face lit up when he was conversing with Doctor Hobson. And the funny part was, Lewis seemed to be completely unaware of her effect on him.

Lewis continued. "We pulled a young girl out of the canal this morning, and since you were on leave, Doctor Cook is playing pathologist on the case."

"I'm sure he'll do fine. Even you can recognize the signs of drowning, I should think."

"I don't doubt that she drowned, but I'm afraid he may have missed something. I was wondering if you could take a look at her tomorrow."

"Missed what?"

"I dunno. Signs of an assault or something of that nature? I just don't trust his work."

A long pause. When she spoke again, her tone had changed considerably.

"Lewis, I . . . No. _No_. Look, I'm not your personal pathologist, and I'm not going on a fishing expedition for you. I'm officially on leave until the day after tomorrow. You know, even _I_ am entitled to a couple of days off every now and then. And you can't keep asking me to redo every examination Doctor Cook performs. I won't do it."

At that moment, Lewis heard a voice call in the background.

"Laura, come on, we don't want to be late!"

A man's voice.

"I have to go. If there's something specific you want me to take a second look at, let me know in two days. Goodbye, Lewis." And she hung up.

Hathaway had watched as Lewis's face changed like a speeded-up movie of day turning into night. When Lewis hung up the receiver without saying goodbye, James glanced over as if he hadn't already been watching.

"No joy?"

Lewis chewed his lip. "Well, I was told off, wasn't I? Not just 'no' this time, but 'no' from now on."

"I shouldn't worry. You've planted the seed, Sir. Tomorrow she won't be able to let it rest. She'll do a re-exam just to satisfy herself."

"She's still on leave tomorrow. Plus, she'll probably view this as a test of wills with me. She's so bloody competitive."

"And you're not."

Lewis just frowned.

"What's she doing with two days' leave? Something special?"

"Oh, aye, _something_. She had a gentleman there, I heard him telling her to hurry."

"Ohhhh." Hathaway held in his smirk as well as he could.

"What's that tone for, then?"

"Well, you sound like you might be a bit jealous."

"Jealous?! What, _me_? Why should I be jealous? I'm not jealous, that's ridiculous."

"I'm just saying you sound jealous." Hathaway's eyes sparkled with the wind-up.

But Lewis was not amused, and storm clouds gathered on his brow. "Look, Sergeant. We seem to keep forgetting something around here. You're supposed to be my subordinate. And as such, you should be refraining from these unprofessional and disrespectful intrusions into my personal life. A bit less insolence and little more deference are in order, I should think. Am I making myself understood?"

Wow. He really _had_ hit a nerve. No trace of his smile remained. "Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir."

o - o - o


	4. Chapter 4

The following day, Hathaway made sure to control his remarks and just focus on the case. The Keep Out file refused to give up its secrets, and he tried everything he could think of to crack the password. He set it to a program that automatically tried combinations of letters and numbers, but grew impatient after it ran for almost two hours without success. Almost no one, in his experience, used random combinations for passwords, and a twelve-year-old girl would be extremely unlikely to be one of the few people that did.

Lewis spent some time studying the whiteboard and re-reading the statements of Lynette's friends. Although Hathaway could tell he was not in the best of moods, Lewis said nothing harsh to his sergeant over the course of the morning. The last two hours of the morning he spent just staring out the window, lost in thought.

At lunchtime, Hathaway decided to try to make a better peace between them. "I'm going for a sandwich, Sir, can I pick up something for you?"

Lewis blinked his way out of his thoughts. "Uh, no. No thanks. I'm not really hungry."

When he returned with his food, Hathaway found Lewis still staring out the window, but now with an evidence bag in his hand. It held the bottle from which Lynette had drunk before drowning. He turned when Hathaway entered the office.

"Ever have one of these?" He held up the bag.

"No, I've never had any urge to see what they're like. You?" He gulped. _Too personal?_

"I caught our Lyn with one once when she was going through her rebellious phase. Gave her a right bollocking, grounded her for a month. Docked her allowance the whole time, too."

"Imprisonment _and_ a fine. It can't be easy being a copper's kid."

Lewis snorted a little. "It's not easy being a copper's kid's parent, either. Anyway, after she slammed her bedroom door in me face, I thought I'd see what it was like. And I was angry, so I chugged it."

"And?"

"Oh, it was awful! Brushed me teeth for five minutes straight to try to get rid of the taste. And then it made me belch all night, and every time I did, I could still taste it. These things should be outlawed."

"Kids seem to like them."

"Yeah, well, kids shouldn't be drinking them." He focused on the bag for half a minute. "Do you think this is all there is to this? She had a few of these, toppled into the canal, and drowned?"

"Wouldn't she have called out? Seems like someone would have heard her."

"Maybe not, if she was intoxicated enough. Or if she . . . I dunno, hit her head, maybe." Lewis furrowed his brow.

"Yeah, but her BAC wasn't all that high. And Doctor Cook's report didn't mention any contusions on her head."

Lewis only growled in reply. Hathaway instantly regretted having reminded his superior officer of that very sensitive subject. _Low profile time_. Hathaway slumped a little in his chair, dipped his eyes, and went back to pecking at the laptop.

"Knock, knock. How's the case going? Close to closure, are we?" Chief Superintendent Innocent popped into the office without waiting for an invitation. "Any chance of getting shut of this one as an accident? There's no evidence of anything else having occurred here, is there?"

"Ma'am, I'm still trying to get into a file on her laptop. I think it may be her diary or journal. It's some kind of word processor document, I can tell that much."

"Well, get your skates on, then, Hathaway. Get someone from Tech to help you out if that will speed things up. Her poor parents. Is that the only holdup, Lewis?"

"There's something not quite right about this case, Ma'am. Her 'poor parents' are part of what's bothering me. Their grief seemed . . . I don't know, contrived, somehow. And other things don't quite add up. Her room was so sterile. It didn't look anything like any other room I've seen of a child that age. It was as if she didn't really live there."

She set her mouth firmly. "That's not evidence, Lewis. You two have until end of day tomorrow. If you haven't turned up anything more by then, this is over, understood?"

o - o - o


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Lewis only smiled grimly in response to Hathaway's greeting. "Might was well start your report, James. Looks like 'death by misadventure' wins. Unless some kind of miracle happens today."

"Most of it is already done."

"Oh." Then after a pause: "Good work."

Hathaway's eyes flicked up. He recognized this as an apology. "No problem, Sir."

"Look, I'm just going to take a walk to clear me head. Call us if anything comes up."

"Of course, Sir."

Lewis headed for the canal. Staring at water always helped him think.

He went slowly, not seeing the narrowboats that passed him. Why couldn't he just accept that this was an accident? That she stumbled in the dark and happened to fall in at a time when there was a gap in the boat traffic on this normally fairly busy stretch? Why would she have come down here at all?

He remembered when Lyn had run out on them like that, angry about some restriction or another that she thought they unreasonably imposed. He and Val went spare with worry, until the mother of one of her friends called several hours later to say she had discovered Lyn hiding out at their house. _They always run to a friend, don't they_, the mother had said at the time.

But Lynette had not. Instead, she had gone by herself to the dark canal. Suicide, then? She seemed a bit young for that, but maybe she was unhappy after moving from Plymouth. He should try to find people who knew her there. He'd have to get that information from her parents, and in a few more hours, Innocent would be shutting down the investigation. Did it matter, really, how she died? He felt as if he were letting her down, somehow.

At last he neared the place where Lynette's body had been found. Looking up along the towpath, he saw a young man standing at the edge of the canal, studying the water. At his feet was a spray of flowers. And as Lewis watched from where he had stopped, the man placed a small brown teddy bear next to the flowers. Then he glanced at the water one last time, and started to walk away.

"Excuse me, Sir?" Lewis hurried quickly after him. "Could I have a word, Sir?" He flipped open his warrant card and held it up.

The man looked a bit worried but he returned to the flowers on the ground.

"Is this for Lynette?" Lewis watched him intently.

"Yeah. This is the place she was found, isn't it?"

"How did you know her, Mister . . . ?"

"Ryan. Geoffrey Ryan. Do you want to see my ID?"

"If you wouldn't mind." He checked it over. Local address, nineteen years old. "Are you a friend? Boyfriend?"

"Yeah. We just started going out last week."

"You don't think she was kind of young for you?"

"She told me she was sixteen. Wasn't she? She seemed mature and was a lot of fun. We weren't serious or anything. I just liked her."

"How did you find out about this?" Lewis gestured toward the water.

"One of her friends texted me. Word travels pretty fast these days."

"Oh, I see." Lewis asked him a few more questions--what her mood had been, what she had told him about her home life--but Ryan was not a wealth of information. At least, not information he was willing to share. Lewis had the distinct feeling the man was either lying outright or at least holding back a fair bit.

"And where were you last night between nine and, say, one in the morning?"

"I worked until ten and then I went straight home. You can check with my mother, she was there."

As he left the canal, Lewis called around to check the man's alibis, and both were verified. Still, he'd have liked to know what Ryan was holding back. He walked slowly, trying to think. The buzz of his mobile made him jump. _Hobson calling_.

"Yes, Doctor?" He tried to keep his voice neutral.

"You'd better get over here. I have something to show you."

Lewis' heart beat faster as he trotted back, trying not to break into a run. If Hobson had found something, maybe they could get a better handle on the case. And maybe he'd be proven right about Cook's incompetence.

He flew into the morgue, red-faced and out of breath. He found Laura waiting for him, her face expressionless. "Well?"

"Look. In here." She pointed to a microscope on the lab bench. She added in a stern voice, "Lewis, this is Doctor Cook's examination. I can't counter his findings. But . . . there are some things I can add."

He peered down the double oculars of the scope. He saw a mass of green circles, each with a smaller, red circle inside. And two little whips attached at one spot of each circumference.

"They look like green olives! What am I looking at?"

"_Haematococcus_. It's a type of algae. I got this from inside her lungs."

He looked at her. "What is it telling us, Doctor?" He felt his scalp prickling.

"This is the alga that turns your birdbath red. It's found in standing water--birdbaths, pools, ponds, that sort of thing--but _never_ in flowing water. She drowned, all right. But not in the canal."

"Someone moved her there?"

"She didn't go there by herself after drowning somewhere else first." She sounded as if she were dealing with a slow-witted child. But he was too excited at the find to let it get to him.

"And there's something else. Your victim was sexually experienced. Rather frequent penetration, I'd say, and it had been going on for some time."

"More than a week or so?"

"Definitely. Months, maybe even years."

"Doctor Cook said the body had been in the water too long to tell anything like that."

"It probably had been, for him. It's not so easy to tell about such things when the body has been underwater for hours, but it can be done." She studied him, still expressionless.

"Doctor, you don't have to tell me you're a better pathologist than Doctor Cook. I'm already certain of it." He smiled, just a little bit. "I owe you for this. Can I buy you a drink when this case is over?"

She frowned. "Lewis, this was hours of work. I had to pretty much redo the whole thing and then some, except for the cutting. And I still have to find a way to tell Doctor Cook that I have once again horned in on his territory, due to your dissatisfaction with his report. And don't think for a minute that I did it just because you asked." She appeared quite decided. "No, you may _not_ buy me a drink for this."

_Was she turning him down or leading him on?_ Lewis took the gamble. "Dinner, then?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Hmm. I suppose that's the best I can expect. Let me know when you've worked this one out. Now, if you'll excuse me, I still have a lot of cleaning up to do. And then I have to do my _own_ work."

o - o - o


	6. Chapter 6

Hathaway looked up, startled, as Lewis entered the office. He was bobbing and dancing, singing to himself.

"_I ain't no psychiatrist  
__I ain't no doctor with a degree.  
__But it don't take too much high I.Q.  
__To see what you're doin' to me_."

He executed a neat spin.

"_You better think.  
__Think 'bout what you're tryin' to do to me."_

Hathaway broke into a wide grin. "Aretha! What brought that on?"

"A little break in the case, courtesy of that most difficult, bloody-minded, strong-willed pathologist, Laura Hobson. God, sometimes I want to kill her."

He cut a few more steps. "_You need me, and I need you  
__Without each other, there ain't nothin' neither can do_."

He got a serious look on his face then, and turned to Hathaway. Deep, dramatic voice. "Gentlemen, we now have a case officially involving . . . _foul play._"

Lewis caught him up on the latest developments. "So I was right, Cook missed something again." _In your face, Laura_.

Hathaway bit his cheeks to minimize his smirk.

Then, "Any joy with the laptop?"

"Not yet, but let me try a few things with Geoffrey Ryan as a base for a password."

Lewis went into the investigation room and started adding the new information to the board, continuing the song under his breath.

"Is that 'Think' you're singing, Lewis?" Innocent stood in the doorway. "That's not a song I would expect you to be familiar with."

He took mock offense. "What are you saying? I'm not one to think?"

She looked ingenuous. "Take it however you see fit. Now, what are we adding here?"

"Well, Ma'am, she was drowned but not in the canal. According to Doctor Hobson, the water in her lungs would have been standing water, not flowing, so the canal is out. And that means someone moved her after she was dead. _And_ she already has had months or maybe even years of frequent sexual activity. I think someone wanted her dead."

Hathaway poked his head into the room. "Sir? I'm in. It's her journal. And it's gold."

Both senior officers followed him hurriedly back to the office. Lewis scrolled through the pages while Hathaway summarized for them.

"She had been sexually abused by her father since she was ten. Her mother knew about it but didn't do anything. They moved from Plymouth right before she was about to tell a teacher. She writes about how it shut her down as a person and she had no interest in anything. That explains the Spartan condition of her bedroom. Last week she met this Geoffrey Ryan guy and he seemed nice at first. Her entries become all gushing and flowery. Knight in shining armor and all. But then he wanted sex. Forced himself on her and promised to keep doing so. According to her journal, that was when she decided to kill herself. She wrote that the night she disappeared. It's the last entry."

Lewis soon finished reading the screen. He looked badly shaken. "That poor girl."

Innocent straightened up from the screen. "Well, that makes this quite a different case from yesterday. I'll leave you two to sort out the rest." She thought a moment. "Maybe we should start playing Aretha in everyone's office." She couldn't quite hide the approval in her voice.

Somberly, Lewis reread the last entry of the girl's journal. "Well, that explains a lot."

"I just had a thought, Sir. I want to check something."

Hathaway sat down at his computer and soon had an aerial view of Oxford on his screen. He zoomed in as close as he could without losing decent resolution.

"Oh, there, right there. Look!" He pointed to a dark square on the screen. Lewis squinted hard but could not muster the enthusiasm for the little smudge that Hathaway had. He frowned.

"It's an ornamental pool, Sir. Not well maintained, I'd guess, that's why it's so dark. And it's right in back of that barn behind the Peters cottage. I think we should get a water sample from that."

"Let's go."

Hathaway blew out his cheeks. "And I guess we should take some backup and pick up the parents."

"'_Parents_.' They don't deserve to be called that. This whole case makes me sick. I wonder if we threaten to charge Geoffrey Ryan with murder if we can get him to confess to rape. He certainly had a role in her death as well."

o - o - o


	7. Chapter 7

"So her parents moved the body in order to make it look like an accident, rather than suicide?" Laura absently stirred the pasta on her plate, picking out the bits of chicken and mushrooms and ignoring the broccoli.

"They didn't want anyone looking at the body too closely. But they didn't get their wish, thanks to you." Although Lewis told himself he was being gracious, he was nagged by the suspicion that his motive was a bit more selfish: trying to get her to admit that _he_ was the cause of the close examination.

"Cook seems to do perfectly adequate work on everyone else's cases. Why is it he can't get yours right?"

"Maybe everyone else is satisfied with mediocre work."

She studied her dish. "Maybe everyone else doesn't prefer to work with only one certain pathologist." She met his eyes and flashed a smile just as Lewis took a sip of wine.

He choked a bit, quickly setting his glass down before he spilled it. "I've worked with other pathologists! I can work with anyone who's competent. Cook, in my experience, is not." He prodded his spaghetti with his fork, pouting a little and feeling foolish for doing so.

She watched him with half-closed eyes, her mouth showing a touch of amusement. Finally, she decided she had tortured him long enough. "Okay, I'll concede this one. You were right to question his work. But Robbie, I really _can't_ be redoing every one of his examinations."

It surprised him that she was so forthright about admitting he was right. "Aw, no, you don't have to redo _all_ of them. Just the ones he cocks up. I'll let you know next time he does that." He grinned. But there was still one thing that kept him from feeling completely satisfied. _How to ask this?_

"So, Laura . . . did you enjoy your time off?" He twirled the stem of his wineglass.

"Mmm, yes. Had a lot of fun."

She was going to make him work for it. "Doing . . . ?"

"Oh, going out for dinner, going to a concert, staying up late playing cards, that kind of thing."

"What, by yourself?" She was enjoying this, he knew.

"No, of course not."

He sighed in exasperation, and she took pity on him. "My brother was here for a few days. He lives in Canada and I don't get to see him very often. Were you thinking it was something else?"

He didn't know why he felt so relieved. "Oh, well, it's none of my business, really." He brightened. "Mind if I have that last piece of garlic bread?"

o - o - o


End file.
